


bronze song, copper whisper.

by sitaray



Category: Original Work
Genre: Constellations, Drabble, Folklore, Lowercase, Mirrors, Mythology - Freeform, Original Fiction, Other, POV Second Person, Short & Sweet, Stars, Tailoring, Weddings, all the chapters ARE unrelated unless otherwise specified <3, not actually folklore just vibes yk, not actually this just has the vibe lmaooo, some elements are taken from south asian culture; mehndi is henna and jugnoo is firefly in urdu, the concept of a tailor shop is very much inspired by my own amazing grandmother, the second story was written for the prompt reflections
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-28
Updated: 2020-07-02
Packaged: 2021-03-04 07:13:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24769825
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sitaray/pseuds/sitaray
Summary: the stars glimmer and twinkle and laugh, and you listen to them.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 13





	1. fireheart, nightspinner, starchild.

your grandmother embroiders diamond rosettes into velvet with shaking but impossibly exact fingers. three days later you are outside, stargazing on the roof, and you see stars winking from the fabric of the sky, identical to her silver stitches in that dark velvet. 

three more nights pass and your grandma calls you to her side, dark eyes twinkling with a thousand secrets and she whispers to you: _have you realised my threads have no colour? they’re as transparent as the glass rose your grandfather to me for our first anniversary. velvet hides the secrets of the stars and only diamond wire can bring them out of hiding. do not forget this when i am gone, jugnoo._

and you blink at her with your firefly eyes but your grandmother remains smiling, crows’ feet at the corner of her eyes. perhaps she senses you understand more than what the veils tell us. after all, she was the same.

velvet, makhmal, cloth spun of night and moonshine and reflections where they should be none. thick and soft and oh-so-mysterious- and wouldn't a velvet mask hide the most, cover secrets within the beauty outside? your grandmother surely thinks so- she loves silk and brocade and cashmere but she's always said velvet makes the best veils, makes her heart skip with something unworldly and breathless.

three months fly and the nights spin with a million constellations like silver speckled skirts whirling, faster and faster and glimmering with stolen light. we see the stars glittering against the sky but only you and your grandmother see the stitches connecting them, weaving a tapestry of mystery none of us are allowed to read. sometimes the sharper-eyed of us catch a new twinkle in the sky that matches your clumsy, new attempts at embroidery- but thats neither here nor there. no one can really keep track of the stars except for you and your grandmother. 

it isn’t rare to catch you on the rooftops you’ve always frequented, but more and more you can be found on the obsidian floor of the tailorshop, glass-coloured threads threaded through the sliver needle your father gifted you. more often than not you’re surrounded by swathes of cloth in all shades of the universe, but when the sun sets you only work on shades of moonshine and night. your grandmother was unparalleled at weaving, but no one, not even she, can spark a candle to your embroidery. 

three years pass. your family orbits around you and your grandmother; the two of you are twin stars, bonded, but one is a predecessor and the other is her legacy. you grow your hair out like all the other girls in the village but the only one who braids silver ribbons in is you. strange travellers visit the tailorshop like clockwork, shiny-skinned and white-robed- they have the same dark eyes as you and your grandmother, but not the same gravity. they call your grandmother _seamstress, spellspinner, silverblessed, ours_. they call you starchild and starchild only. 

you smile at all of them but only brush your fingers across the cheekbones of a few. a trail of glimmerdust is left behind, and when night falls you draw swirling patterns on their hands in mehndi. they leave the tailorshop with more light in their eyes than before, and after that you always sleep for three days straight. 

three decades tick-tick-tick down. your grandmother is still alive and your father is not, and she may have more wrinkles but her hands fly with as much life as ever. you don't have any daughters but you do have sons- neither have your eyes but both have your hair. 

the shop is yours now, and you are the one who makes all the wedding outfits now. everyone knows that if you favour someone, you slip into their wedding chamber’s and sprinkle silver on their cheekbones, and those marriages always stay the happiest. but you still dance in the same speckled velvet skirts in every time any wedding takes place. your hands fly and your ankles chime with bells, and tiny fires twinkle against the night in your eyes, your hair, your clothes. 

you leave smudges of silver wherever your hands brush. the village hums and so does the sky, and you stay bright with it. 


	2. a morsel of light, a sliver of glass.

real myths don’t have gods.

(they start from flickers of dust, like pearls but not, shining & bruised with rainbows but incorporeal all the same. cool between your teeth & smooth rolling on the tongue, like ghosts & sugar packed neatly into a little ball. you can’t touch a myth- but can’t you feel it, breathe it, live it?)

(we are powerful in our paradox, in our frail and whispered permanence, in the gaps between our lips & our fingernails. myths live in the spaces in & between us & this has _always_ been true.)

(in the distance, you swallow a dream. in the distance, someone dies and someone is born, again & again & again. in the distance, a story whispers.)

real myths have always been more powerful than mere _gods_.

_i_.

it starts as a whisper, flitting through the underbelly of cities. snippets of gossip slip through cracked teeth & chapped lips, eyes flashing in sync with stuttering hearts. _there’s a girl who eats mirrors,_ they say. _she breathes dreams & nibbles on marigolds & eats shards of rainbow glass like it’s nothing. her eyes are solid black & she has sharp, long teeth- and she eats_ mirrors.

and your canines may be a little sharper than most, your irises a little bigger- but for the most part the stories exaggerate. you’re a normal girl. a little strange, yes, & you _do_ eat mirrors, but that’s fine, isn’t it? normal is relative.

you’re just a girl.

they find you anyways, one after one, trickling after the trail of oddities you leave behind you like drops of blood in snow. you tell me about people, skeptical & desperate all at once, yearning for something magical. they call you sinner and call you saviour in equal measure, scream & gasp & stare as glass melts on your tongue like soft butter.

with pilgrims come preachers, and they hear your words and turn bone white, parchment white. you eat their mirrors and whisper their secrets in their ears- some name you salvation & some call you demon & some stay quiet, but all of them know you speak truth. then one too many people start looking at you with fear in the corners of their mouths, and you know it’s finally time to move on.

_ii_.

you join the night carnivale.

they name you antanáklasi, & you paint your fingernails & mouth scarlet, stitch your suit yourself with glittering black glass. your costume is still tame, compared to your ringmates, & your performance is neither first nor last nor smack in the middle; it’s somewhere near the end- but it is you who they remember when they leave: you are the hidden centrepiece of the show. they come back again & again, and don’t admit its for you except for in raw early morning conversations. _we went to carnivale,_ they say, _and there was a girl who ate mirrors. she pried one off my ring and folded it up & slipped it in her mouth like a sliver of candy, then tilted my head slightly and whispered in my ear something about myself even i didn’t know. _

they say, _i still feel her fingers on my jaw sometimes._ they say, _i saw her pry apart a marigold once & taste it petal by petal._ they say, _hearing her was more frightening and beautiful and reverent then we could ever have imagined._

your story builds. the world whispers.

_iii_.

the carnivale travels & you with it. people come from miles away & give your their mirrors to eat- i asked you once whether you eat anything other than glass & flowers & you just smiled at me.

word of you grows. the carnivale becomes bigger; they get an invitation from the queen & people say she called for you after the performance but you said no. days & months & years pass and you become a local legend, a household name- people scold their children with _what would antanáklasi say if she ate your mirror? why don’t we go and ask?_

(when i tell you this, you stifle a laugh & your eyes glitter as you tell me it’s children who should be asking adults that.)

_iv_.

 _antanáklasi:_ reflection; translated to greek to seem more exotic but you confided in me once that it wouldn’t be the same without the word; you tell me of how it rounds in your mouth and feels like petals & a snap of your fingers, like crackling ice in autumn. your birth name was fine for the person, you say, but this name is the stuff of myths.

it fits you and you know it. antanáklasi.

_v_.

you’re a proverb now, and people whisper your name to their children and ask them what their truth is. they ask, _who are you?_ they ask, _who do you think you’ll be?_ and they ask, _if antanáklasi ate your mirrors, what would she say, what would she tell you?_

engraved mirrors are given as gifts now, little circles of glass with words or flowers etched on the back; you tell me the first time you saw your name on the back of one, you almost cried. you tell me, when children ask with their glimmering eyes wide if you’re really antanáklasi, you just wink and ruffle their hair.

you say, with a smile, that it’s better for the story, food for the myth. you’re not wrong.

_vi_.

(this is how a myth is born: with a whisper and the stolen breath at the back of a child’s throat, with flowers etched on lockets and mirrors hidden in pillows. you are antanáklasi and you are not, and you are a myth but you are not a _god.)_

mirrors lie on your tongue. petals stain your fingers.

the story whispers on.

**Author's Note:**

> hello lovelies!! i’ll be posting some of my original drabbles in this series & they’re all fairly short, so keep an eye out for that! <3
> 
> tell me what you think, i would love to hear what you have to say! constructive criticism is always welcome too :)) find me on tumblr @sitaray or @kahaania!!


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